New documents provide a close-up look at the life of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who left a remote base in eastern Afghanistan in June 2009. Sergeant Bergdahl, who was tortured during nearly five years in Taliban custody, was swapped in May 2014 for five Taliban detainees.

The circumstances of Sergeant Bergdahl’s disappearance led to an Army investigation and have become the subject of the second season of the popular podcast “Serial.” For his part, Sergeant Bergdahl has said that he left the base to draw attention to what he viewed as subpar leadership in his unit. Charged with desertion and misbehavior before the enemy, Sergeant Bergdahl could face life in prison.

In an August 2014 interview with an Army investigator, Sergeant Bergdahl described his unusual upbringing, his competitiveness, his “fantastic plan” to leave the base in Afghanistan and his hope to move on with his life. Below are excerpts from that interview.

A lonely childhood

‘I am more comfortable in the mountains’

“I was home schooled so I didn’t – I wasn’t raised in a very social environment and my parents raised me in a very strict, very religious setting. Obviously the Christian religion is a very ethical, moral religion. My father, despite the fact that he was never in the military, he was very – his mindset was very military. He raised me knowing how to shoot weapons. I have probably been doing that since I was 2 to 3 years old. So that has – the weapons and the very strict and very ethical environment that I was raised in – was the most prominent theme throughout my life. However, it wasn’t the best house to be in. …

Growing up the way I grew up, I also lacked the understanding of how to move through society. I am more comfortable in the mountains. I grew up in the mountains. You know, wandering around following cats, and dogs, and horses; that is what I grew up doing. That was my main experience. So when I got out in the world and I started trying to get jobs in cities, it was a little overwhelming.”

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Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl of the United States Army.
Credit
U.S. Army/Getty Images North America

An introvert determined to better himself

‘I want to push myself’

“You put me in a room full of guys, I am not the type of guy that is not going to want to establish myself as the alpha male. I am not the pushover that can’t – that could happily go and sit on the sidelines and not – if I am not good at something, that bothers me. Do I want to be better than everybody else? No, I don’t want to be better than everyone else, but I do want to do – I don’t want to be arrogant about it, but I do want to be better than the average. I want to push myself.

I grew up out in the middle of nowhere. I had very little interaction with technology. I had very little interaction with social structures. I had very little interaction with girls. You know, video games, not so much. So, on the average day, or average conversations, I would be lagging behind because I didn’t know all that stuff.

I am an introvert. I have to actually put a lot of effort into being a conversationalist in social environments. I can’t go to parties because that just drains me. It takes a lot of effort to carry on in a regular conversation with somebody. So, I have a tendency, one, from very early on in life, being an introvert, and being – coming from the household that I came from, coming from my environment, I learned a long time ago, you learn more by listening and watching, and standing off to the side, plus being extremely shy, that is what I did naturally. ”

Sergeant Bergdahl’s years of wandering

‘I went to France to join the French Foreign Legion’

“Prior to the Coast Guard, I had joined – I went to France to join the French Foreign Legion. The reason for the French Foreign Legion was – I’ll be honest, it was an adventurous sounding idea. I have always wanted to travel and I have always wanted to learn languages. And I have always had that interest of expanding my experience and understanding of the world. Unfortunately, I went all the way to Paris. I went to the fort and I tried to check-in. They did a physical on me and they told me because of my eyes they wouldn’t take me, which was honestly, kind of, a little bit of relief because by the time I got over there it was way overwhelming. I was there. I didn’t speak any French or anything like that. I was relieved. Honestly, I was relieved.”

A panic attack in the Coast Guard

‘I can’t save these people’

In 2006, Sergeant Bergdahl had a psychological breakdown during Coast Guard training. He was discharged because of an “adjustment disorder with depression.” Two years later, he was allowed to enter the Army with a waiver.

“Because of what my childhood was, I learned to stand on the sidelines and watch and listen to what was going on, and then think about it. When I got into the Coast Guard, that put me smack in view of the whole situation. They weren’t off to the side; they were right in your face. You were right there in the focal point and every action you were doing was pressured, and it was watched.

What ended up happening was, I ended up having a panic attack, about three weeks into it. Again, I don’t have a good recollection of what happened. I just remember that it came about one evening when everyone was going down for roll call. What happened was, they got me to the hospital. And, in those moments, I think it was a psychiatrist – there was a couple people that were there.

They came in and asked me some questions. And I believe I said something about – I was trying to say, basically, ‘I can’t save these people.’ Because the pressure was, honestly, all the way up until that point, the information I was getting from my family, especially my dad, was that I can’t succeed in anything, that I am a failure.”

Disillusionment in basic training

‘It was just these people that shouldn’t have been in the Army’

“There were other guys who would always, whenever it came to a detail, would always disappear magically. There were these guys who just didn’t care. They had no respect for what they were doing there. They were there for a paycheck. …

It was just these people that shouldn’t have been in the Army. So I saw this element and it wasn’t just my platoon. It was all the platoons in basic training. Everybody had this story of these guys or that guy or this guy and what they were doing. The drill sergeant knew about it. The drill sergeants knew about it. The company captain knew about it. But they still graduated. So what I was doing when I was at my unit, I was seeing the actual effect of what happens when you let these people into a unit. …

The type of guys that shouldn’t have graduated are the guys who have blatantly showed that they have no respect for the Army, what it stands for, what the command is, and what we’re supposed to stand – what we as soldiers are supposed to represent.”

A sergeant’s words bother Bergdahl

‘I know you all joined because you want to rape, pillage and kill’

Sergeant Bergdahl describes his experience in early basic training. Below, N.T.C. stands for National Training Center and COIN is shorthand for counterinsurgency.

“Then what I saw was, the sergeants that were around me, they were playing games. They were playing video games. One sergeant had his laptop. We were ordered, the privates were ordered to put our cellphones in our bags because we weren’t supposed to have them at N.T.C. and we are supposed to focus on our training. Then you have these sergeants with their laptops and you see them playing World of War Craft or something like that. …

I came down to N.T.C. to train as a soldier, and I spent the majority of my time cleaning up; picking up cigarette butts and trash, or sorting through brass.

So here we are, we’re standing here, the sergeant major and the lieutenant colonel are doing their talks. The sergeant major is going to do his. He opens with, “I know you all joined because you want to rape, pillage and kill. That’s why I joined. However, you need to think about COIN.”

Sergeant Bergdahl described returning to an Afghanistan base after an extended mission in which his unit was stranded for six days, exchanged fire with the Taliban and was attacked with improvised explosive devices. A battalion commander, or B.C., Sergeant Bergdahl says, immediately criticized the members of his unit for not shaving:

“There was no concern for his men’s well-being. The first thing that came out of his mind, as it came down the line and the radio was, our platoon sergeant stepped out of the truck onto the ground and the B.C. said to him, “What, you couldn’t shave?” His main concern was that after our extended mission for six days, after our two I.E.D.’s and a complex attack, after making it back finally, after all this mess, his main concern was the fact that, as soldiers, we didn’t think it was important to pack a shaver and shaving cream.

So, I was looking at that and I was going, ‘That was my option. Nobody is going to listen to me. Nobody is going to say anything. Nobody is going to say anything.’ And if I go to my squad sergeant, if I go to my platoon sergeant, if I go to the higher commanders that are under the B.C., they are not going to do anything because they don’t want to rock the boat.

But I was looking at a situation that could very easily go south. Like worst case scenario, we get sent on a suicide mission. But, all right, but what if? That is one thing. What if this guy isn’t fit for his duty? Then what happens?”

A strategy to reveal flaws in Army leadership

‘I came up with a fantastic plan’

“So, I had to come up with some plan because I knew nobody else was going to do anything about it. Everybody else was going to keep their heads down and just try to ride it out. That is what you are supposed to do.

Not only am I a soldier here, but I am also a citizen of America. And that means, their well-being goes [beyond the immediate moment], you know, my concern isn’t just for my immediate surroundings. It is for the bigger picture. Army is America’s Army. It is not the general’s Army. It is not the captain’s Army. It is America’s Army. So, as a citizen of America, I have that duty as well. To make sure that – you know, someone would say, ‘You are just a private. You don’t have the authority to be questioning your higher ranks.’ …

And as a private first class, where I was standing, I was seeing around me all this just stupid bullshit. And I was seeing things heading in a very dangerous direction. So, I had to do something. It had to be me doing it. And so I came up, happily with my ignorance of a young – from a young man’s mind and my imagination, I came up with a fantastic plan.”

Sergeant Bergdahl’s plans to leave the base

‘​I wasn’t planning on making contact with the Taliban at all’

In the interview, Sergeant Bergdahl discussed his plan to leave the base and create a DUSTWUN, a military term for a missing-soldier procedure, that he believed would draw attention to flaws in Army leadership. He told Army investigators that he planned to gather intelligence on the Taliban’s movements and report that to superiors:

“I wasn’t planning on making contact with the Taliban at all. What I was planning on doing was I was planning on moving along the route that I believed there were guys putting I.E.D.’s in.

My original plan was to run in the night, daytime comes, cover myself, and wait for evening to come again, and run at night and get to point B. …

So this took me into the night and the plan was to find people moving in the darkness in a suspicious way by a road or something like that. …

Things I took with me were what was in my pockets, my wallet. I had my camera. I always had that, even when I was on patrol; always had a digital camera. I had my notebook. I had a few personal journal entries and poems. A newspaper article about a guy who had made a record sailing a boat; self-contained sailing for a thousand days or something. So I had that in there.

I had my knives because I am a knife person – I like knives. They are very functional tools. They have a very large meaning out west. I also had my pocketknife; I always have a pocketknife. I grabbed a pack of chicken meat from an M.R.E., a pack of nuts from my trail mix, my compass and my belt.”

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This image, made from video released by the Taliban and obtained by IntelCenter on Dec. 8, 2010, shows a man believed to be Bowe Bergdahl at left.
Credit
Intel Center, via Associated Press

Is He a Taliban sympathizer?

‘I am, for lack of a better word, a feminist’

“People have talked about desertion. People have talked about treason or whatever it is that they want to talk about. They want to talk about, ‘Oh, he was a sympathizer of the Taliban.’ All right. You look at their ideology and what they are doing and you look at my character. And you want to ask me questions about that, I will happily talk all day about the joke of what they are [the Taliban]. All right. I am, for lack of a better word, a feminist. I fully believe in women’s equality.

You have met Kim Harrison. I call her my godmother because that is the type of person that I find as, you know, a senior role model. She is that type of person. I fully believe in that. So, sympathizer to the Taliban is a complete joke and you can talk to me all day about it and I will happily rip it up one side and down the other, and leave it completely lacking in any theories.”

Sergeant Bergdahl explains an Ayn Rand reference

‘Who is John Galt?’

At one point in the interview, Sergeant Bergdahl discusses a reference he made to John Galt, a character in Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged.” Sergeant Bergdahl is not able to remember if the reference came in an email to friends or in a journal, but he explains what he meant by the line “Who is John Galt?”:

“When I mentioned John Galt, it’s not referencing politics. What it’s referencing is the fact that in “Atlas Shrugged,” John Galt, his mission is to end, basically, the system. …

‘Who is John Galt?’ I’m referencing the fact that the reason why that quote came about was because John Galt, at the very beginning, where he saw it happening, he saw communists coming, he saw the corruptness of the system coming, he walked out and said, ‘I’m going to stop this engine. I’m going to stop the engine of the world.’ I’m a very mechanically inclined person. I like engines. I like the puzzle, the way everything fits so smoothly. So it resonated with me.”

Should he go to jail?

‘You are going to make your decision, and I am going to respect that’

“On my personal part, after the last five years that I have been through, it would be, I don’t think, too – I don’t want to go with brash, too exaggerated to say that, [the last five years] that was a little more than any prison system in America could put forth, if we are talking punishment for action. I read on the Internet somebody saying, ‘Well, if charges of desertion were pressed, then he would spend five years in prison.’ If you put it in that sense, realistically speaking, what I dealt with isn’t in the American prison system because we go to great extent of giving prisoners the luxuries of being human.

From my personal perspective, given the opportunity to move on with my life, which has been what has kept me going. The ability to get back to this life and being the perfectionist that I am, make up for all of the things I had to look at as regrets.

Do I need anything to move on with my life? Yes, obviously I need something as a human being. I can pull myself up like I did before. I started at the bottom before; I can start at the bottom. …

So your decision is going to be your decision. This is just coming from my side. I’m going to be, as a soldier, I am going to understand that as the commander, as the general, you have the big picture. You have to look at everything, details to the bigger picture, and your decisions are going to be made off of your understanding of the situation and your experience in all the years that you have been there. You are going to make your decision and I am going to respect that.”